On Wednesday my WRD professor, Andrew Patrick, had our class go out onto our college campus and look at a physical text. We were supposed to analyze it based on Catherine Savini's method of "Looking for Trouble". My particular group's assignment/object was to analyze a petrified tree right outside of our building (pictured below).
As the assignment moved forward, my group and I were quite... stumped, for lack of a better term. We at first did not see how Savini's method applied to this particular text. However, it became abundantly clear that this method of analyzing text is extremely effective and can truly be applied in any situation. As I can not say for my group collectively, I know I became intensely interested in this stump and the entire meaning behind it!
- Why is this stump here?
- What is so significant about just a stump?
- Who thought this was a good idea?
The Whitfield stump, as it is called, is apparently over 300,000,000 years old! A man named George Whitfield, the manager of Clover Fork Coal Company, had found and removed this stump from a coal mine in the early 1930's. From the time it was found until 1961 it was on display in Knitts, Kentucky. It was then donated by Mr. Whitfield to the University of Kentucky to the Geology department. A gracious donation indeed, however, even through my research I could not find out the specific reason as to why it was donated in the first place. Which leads me to more questions, having my previous questions answered.
- Why was it donated?
- What did this do for the Geology Department?
Perhaps these answers, will come in time.
I am also very intrigued by this fossil, and I found your questions very interesting! Because I had not thought about them beofre but now I am very curious. Hopefully we will get our answers at some point.
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